Stargazing
by Dakota Pratt
Summary: Eva muses and mourns over the disappearance of her son with some help from a friend. Post54 by several months.


Stargazing

**by Dakota Pratt**

Eva didn't like monuments. They were loud and public and asymmetrical and a breeding ground for media frenzy, or for three year-olds to run up to and rub their grimy hands all over while asking a million inane questions; for people who never knew you to stop and stare as if you were an exotic animal on display, and usually when they built a monument to you it meant you were dead.

Her son was not dead. She knew it as certainly as she knew that the earth revolved around the sun. Sudden disappearance or no, shuttle crash or no, Eva knew that Marco was still alive with every fiber of her being. The first stage of grief is, as they say, denial. There had been no sign of Marco or Jake for nearly three months, but she held out hope, like a candle held out on the coldest of nights, the wind threatening to extinguish it with every gust. She still worried, of course. Just because he wasn't dead didn't mean that he wasn't afraid, or alone, or - something. There were things worse than death. Almost a decade as a Controller had taught her that much and she'd be damned if it was a lesson she'd forget.

But she would not give up hope. Would not.

The sky was stained a rusted shade of orange and as the sun set, a chill began to creep into the California autumn air. Eva drew her coat around her shivered, still clutching forcefully to the envelope in her left hand. That had been Naomi's idea - Eva silly. Marco wasn't here. There was no address to send it to. He would never read it. But she'd insisted. Said it helped with the pain; helped say the things you needed to say, not just to them, but to yourself. Eva had refused at first.

"Don't you want to talk to him?" The look on her face had been nothing like the Naomi that Eva had remembered. The sharp-tongued, quickwitted hardass had evaporated with her daughter's death, and all that was left now was a woman in ruins, searching Eva's face desperately for kinship, a chance to connect on this one thing. They had both lost children, she seemed to think. Eva didn't understand why that meant they needed to be friends, but lacked the heart to say as much out loud.

"Of course I want to talk to him," she'd snapped. "And I'll say everything I want to say. When he comes back." It sounded petulant, even to her ears - it wasn't like her to cling so foolishly to blind hope. It was, however, very like her to remain obstinate and unyielding in the face of facts she did not want to hear.

The statue loomed before her, twice her height and made of perfectly polished copper. The face of her son - and of Jake - peered down at her, every detail precise and perfected. Even Marco's sardonic smile had been expertly captured and cast. Such precision was a science. The two boys - even after everything, she could hardly think of them as men, so young and still with so much life left in them - were positioned side by side, Marco with one hand clapped onto Jake's shiny shoulder. When the sun caught it in just the right way, the glowing hues of sunset seemed to animate them with a mimicry of life, and it took her a moment to realize that Jake and Marco were not actually standing in front of her. It was, in fact, a very nice monument.

Eva didn't like monuments.

She stood for a moment, uncertain of what, exactly, she was expected to do. The world was telling her that Marco was dead, but she didn't believe it. The world was also telling her that he was great. Adored by the masses. A hero - and that she knew. She'd never been to a graveyard or memorial service before, never experienced the death of anyone she'd loved, and the only funeral she'd ever seen had been her own.

"I'm sorry for your loss," people had been saying to her. Strangers, no less, coming up to her on the street to apologize, to share what little they knew about Marco, to say hello and I'm sorry for your loss.

She hated that. "My loss?" she would say every time. "I haven't _lost_ anything. I did not misplace my son. He is not hiding under the rug or behind the sofa. The mission took him, and when it is good and ready, the mission will give him back." Her heels would click loudly on the pavement as she jostled past them trying to wipe each encounter from her mind. Trying to hold on to her thoughts of Marco.

It was so hard to believe, some days. So hard to keep going.

With one last look over the earth, the sun sank beneath the horizon and Eva was plunged into night. Stars began to emerge overhead, each of them more familiar than the last. She had visited some of those stars, once upon a time. She'd seen worlds. She'd traveled for years and done terrible things in the name of power. The stars feared her.

Feared her. That was funny. The stars now feared a disgruntled, fortysomething woman who stood at the base of her son's empty grave clutching a stupid white envelope and wondering what the hell she was going to tell Peter when he asked her why she missed dinner - her favorite. The cool night air breathed gently on her face, and it took her a moment to realize she was crying. And still standing there, paralyzed, unsure of what to do or who to talk to or a million other things.

It felt like an eternity before she felt it. The soft touch of reassurance, a gentle hand on her shoulder. She jumped - then quited herself. Turned slowly to see the dim outline of Naomi, who gave a tight-lipped smile and squeezed her shoulder.

"Go on," she said in a voice that was barely a whisper. She nodded at the letter, still clutched in Eva's left hand. Damn. She kept forgetting about that. "It's time."

She nodded. She drew in a deep breath, swallowed whatever resistance she had left, and knelt to place the letter at the foot of the large, genial Marco that loomed over her. She felt, more than saw, Naomi move behind her, then come into view with a small rock, which she placed with care over the envelope to protect it from the growing winds. Eva shivered, and pulled her coat close around her once more. Standing took more effort than she imagined it should have, but Naomi was there, helping her up, hooking their arms so that they fell into matching steps as they turned from the monument and began to walk away.

It felt like the longest walk of Eva's life. And back there she had left a piece of herself, a piece of her heart that she had given away twenty years ago when she gave birth to the boy who would later become a hero.

_Marco, _

_I don't know what's happened to you. I've been looking, but I don't know where you've gone. I thought that once you and Jake and your friends had defeated the Yeerks, the nights of me waking up in a cold sweat, wondering whether or not my son is alive, would finally end. _

_I was a fool, of course. It never ends. I know this better than anyone. I still can't use a Q-tip without being reminded of that sensation, that squirming in my ear and the pool and those damned slugs. Some things never leave you, I guess. You deal with them as best you can. You move on. You heal. But you never forget. _

_They're talking about a crash between two hi-jacked shuttles just outside of orbit. They're trying to tell me you were on one of those ships, but I've been part of enough conspiracies by now to know a cover-up when I'm being fed it. They're trying to tell me you're dead, and I know that's not true. I lie awake at night and fear it, but I know it's not true. I feel like I would know - somehow - even if you were a million miles away, I would know. _

_I miss you. Every day I miss you. I never imagined I would get you back, only to lose you again this soon. We've been robbed of so much of our time together, and I hate it. I hate it. But I can't control it, and I know that. _

_So good luck, my son, wherever you are. You have all my love, all my faith, and all the grace of God you will ever need. I know that whatever you have set out to accomplish, you will. Say hello to Jake for me. And don't forget, once in a while, to stop and enjoy the stars. Outer space gives you one hell of a view. _

_Come back to me safe and soon. Or I'll kill you. _

_Your adoring mother,  
__Eva_

Maybe someday he would come back. Maybe someday he would read it. All she could do was hope. And look up at the vast expanse of stars above her, wondering where among those constellations her son might be.

Eva didn't like monuments. But this one, she could live with.

END


End file.
